Month: November 2016

“You’ve got the look of a girl who’s no stranger to the page. I can tell. You’ve got words in your soul.”

Normally this would be an excerpts post. It’s going to be jumbled and stream of consciousness style–I honestly don’t know what I’m sitting down to say tonight. But I haven’t written a post since August, and that one doesn’t really count–it was a playlist post. I haven’t written, either on my blog or in my journal, since starting college. And so, so much has happened in the last few months. Sometimes I wonder why I avoid writing, because it’s usually quite therapeutic for me, but I think life just kept happening and things kept changing and there was so much to say and not enough time to sit down and say it. I’ve definitely been putting it off. But I’ve finally given in to the urge to pour out some of my thoughts and feelings tonight and my journal is back in my dorm room at university, so naturally I turn to Gemrene.

“Wander often. Wonder always.”

So where to begin? This fall, I started college. The change that comes with moving to a new place, even if it’s only a few hours away from my hometown, and adjusting to the strange interim period that university is in my life, has been challenging. I don’t hate college, but I don’t love it either. It’s neither spectacular nor awful. Yet I don’t feel entirely neutral about it. I don’t quite know how to articulate, either in writing or with spoken words, how college has been for me thus far. I’ve done things, like joining a sorority, that I never imagined doing. I’ve switched roommates; I thought I would love my first one but it didn’t work out at all, yet my current roommate is an incredible blessing in my life. I’ve “gone out”, put myself out there, and met some wonderful new people. I’ve changed my major once already and am probably going to change it again. I’ve taken a step towards studying abroad this upcoming summer and am planning an overseas trip by myself for spring break. Writing it all down, I’ve done a lot.

I feel like a very different person than I was in high school, yet some things are still so familiar. For one, I’m not so focused on success and high achievement and doing things just to list them on a resume. For that, I am proud. I’m not quite as much of the high stress person I used to be, but I’m still far from where I’d like to be when it comes to managing my stress and anxiety. Surprisingly, for me, I have little idea what I want to do with my life. I have a few ideas, sure, but mainly I just want to be happy. I want to have the time and money to do and have the things that matter to me: travel, hockey games, books and reading, and two kids someday in the distant future. I want to be balanced. I want to enjoy my job. Basically, I want a high quality of life, measured not in “success” or income or prestige, but in my happiness and the ability to provide for myself the things I want to be able to have or do. But aside from that, everything’s still a blur. And while I’m only a freshman and everyone keeps telling me I have so much time, I look back and see how quickly my four years of high school went by. I’m almost finished with my first semester of university, meaning I have 7-9 semesters left. And I really, really want to make the most of them.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

I want to get another tattoo. I know what, and generally where, it will be and hopefully will have it permanently etched into my skin by the end of the year. I want to learn how to balance my time better at school, because living at school makes that even harder than it was in the past. I want to read more books, travel more, see more of the world, discover new music and new perspectives, and meet amazing new people who will inspire me and become important figures in my life. I want good friends, to budget my money wisely without being frugal, to try out new restaurants, and to take lots and lots of pictures. I want to live a full, beautiful, and meaningful life.

“Trust the wait. Embrace the uncertainty. Enjoy the beauty of becoming. When nothing is certain, anything is possible.”